Revisiting this as-of-yet unnamed Ray Dragon species that debuted in a previous piece. This particular species was designed for higher elevation/cliff side/upper canopy living. Heavy inspiration was drawn from boa c. occidentalis (the Argentine boa) and crested geckos, although I pulled from other animals to achieve the look and feel I wanted.

I’ve been mulling over the naturally occurring phenotypes of this animal. The vast majority of the population has a significant amount of melanin, and falls between the hypermel and white-sided variants. Both are polygenic traits (the darker the parents the darker some of the babies will be, the lighter the parents the lighter some of the babies will be, and inheritance is unpredictable), and the animals represented here are the two extremes of the spectrum. I also included a leaky T+ gene variant: in this instance, tyrosinase (the enzyme that regulates melanin production) is blocked from producing melanin, leading to a gold/copper colored creature. However, it’s not hindered completely from producing and continues to manufacture small amounts of melanin as the animal grows, resulting in light colored offspring that then darken as they age.

I will have to revisit the Maxx Pink version in future doodling, as that version of Amaretto I did is more in line with the T and less what I was going for color-wise.